Shelly Duvall Dies at 75

I’m utterly devastated to hear about the passing of Shelly Duvall. She truly made a mark on cinema in the ‘70s and ‘80s. Duvall died in her sleep of complications of diabetes at her home in Blanco, Texas just four days after her 75th birthday.

“My dear, sweet, wonderful life partner and friend left us. Too much suffering lately, now she’s free. Fly away, beautiful Shelley,” her partner Dan Gilroy told THR.

Roger Ebert once said that Duvall “looked and sounded like nobody else”. Those big eyes, that slim face. Her mentor was Robert Altman, and they made great films together, especially “3 Women,” “McCabe & Mrs. Miller,” and “Nashville.”

Of course, her most memorable work was not in an Altman film, but instead as Jack Nicholson’s besieged wife in Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining.” Her performance was astonishing, but also came with a price. It broke her.

Kubrick had her “crying 12 hours a day for weeks on end,” she said in a 1981 interview with People magazine. “I will never give that much again. If you want to get into pain and call it art, go ahead, but not with me.”

One legend claims that Kubrick forced her to perform the iconic baseball bat scene 127 times. However, Steadicam operator Garrett Brown and assistant editor Gordon Stainforth later debunked the story, saying the scene was shot about 35-45 times.

Despite Duvall delivering one of the greatest horror performances ever put on film, she bewilderingly received a Razzie Award for her performance, which organizers later rescinded in shame.

Although her Wendy Torrance in “The Shining” might be the most iconic work of her career, Duvall’s best performance was actually in Robert Altman’s surreal masterpiece “3 Women.” The 1977 film, which garnered her the Best Actress award at Cannes, tackled the bizarre friendship between an adult woman (Duvall), her roommate and co-worker (Sissy Spacek) and a middle-aged pregnant woman (Janice Rule).

Sadly, Duvall was never Oscar-nominated, despite these two all-timer performances in “3 Women” and “The Shining.”

She quit acting in 2002 to focus on life. She moved back to her home state of Texas, where she remained out of the spotlight for years. However, in 2016, Duvall appeared in public for the first time in over two decades by accepting to partake in a controversial Dr. Phil interview. The actress admitted in the sitdown that she was “mentally ill.”

After that interview, Duvall once again returned to her quiet life away from the public. Her final interview came with THR’s Seth Abramovitch which ended up being a more sincere update on her personal life and what she's been up to over the years.

In 2023, Duvall had a brief acting comeback, starring in the cheapie horror film “The Forest Hills.”